Re: Professional or Not (was Database Design)

"Niall Litchfield" <niall.litchfield_at_dial.pipex.com> wrote
> "Galen Boyer" <galenboyer_at_hotpop.com> wrote
> > Well, that's all well and good, but are there any IT
> > accreditations that hold water? The only one that seems to is
> > the Microsoft accreditations (I'm not talking from facts here, I
> > really don't know about accreditations). Are there any database
> > accreditations that would make an interviewer already have a
> > certain level of confidence? If not, how would people suggest
> > that be formed?
> >
>
> There are some that go someway - being a member of the BCS for example in
> the uk (http://www1.bcs.org.uk/) might be one, but no that is really the
> point. Folk talk about being IT professionals but the 'profession' doesn't
> organize itself as a profession with common standards, self regulation,
> continuing professional education etc. Careers which I refer to as
> professions, doctor, accountant,architect etc do. Gaining a piece of paper
> that says I can competently operate Oracle JDeveloper 10g is not a
> professional qualification, any more than being able to operate sage
> sovereign makes me an accountant.
>

The careers you mention are not really self-regulating. They're government regulated. If you practice medicine without a license, the penalty isn't losing your status, it's jail.

I think it would be useful if someone were to say exactly what sort of qualification we're talking about. For doctors, you're not allowed to write prescriptions without a license. Are you proposing we be legally prohibited from creating a table without a license? Or are we talking about voluntary standards?

Furthermore, unlike, say, brain surgery, any reasonably competent technical person can get a book and figure out proper backup/recovery procedures. Should a company no longer be permitted to turn that task over to a competent C programmer, but instead be forced to hire an outside consultant who has the certificate?

It's one thing to say the industry needs standards, and another entirely to try to legally enforce them.

My 2 cents - college degrees matter in IT, just like they do in every other professional field. The problem-hires I've seen have been when companies hire people without degrees, or with degrees in unrelated fields. As the field matures and companies start requiring comp. sci. degrees, the problem of unqualified people will disappear. Received on Tue Jan 06 2004 - 20:26:45 CST